This specification relates to the field of consumer electronics and more particularly to an electronic book reader.
Electronic book readers, also called eReaders, display and allow users to read electronic books, also called eBooks, and other electronic reading material. Some devices are dedicated eReader devices for presenting eBooks. Other devices, including personal computers, tablets, and smartphones, may have the capacity to act as eReaders as well as performing other tasks. In many prior art eReaders, the primary design focus has been creating software that allows the user to interact with eBooks like printed books. Thus, eReaders typically provide a means for the user to turn pages, often accomplished through a hardware button, screen icon button, or swipe of the finger across a touch-sensitive electronic screen. The eBook software on eReaders and other devices may also allow the user to perform additional routines commonly associated with reading printed materials, including highlighting text, creating notes, and flagging pages in the book.
Some prior art eReaders support eBooks with enhanced content. An eBook with enhanced content may make supplementary material available by clicking on a link, picture, word, phrase, or other highlighted portion of a document. However, a number of problems surface when using eBooks with enhanced content, particularly when graphics are combined with text.
One problem that arises is that too much supplementary material can be confusing to a user. Consider an electronic screen upon which text is being displayed. The text may be a web page, an electronic book, a business report, or other textual content source. The passages of text displayed on the electronic screen may contain links to supplementary material, such as another text file, a graphic file, a video file, an audio file, an animation file, a link to a web site, or an entry point into a section of computer programming code. However, several questions arise concerning the user interaction with the supplementary content. How will the user be informed that supplementary material exists? How will the user request the supplementary material? How will the supplementary material be displayed once it has been requested? In traditional presentation modes, the existence of supplementary materials is relayed to the user via combinations of highlighting, underlining, or coloring of appropriate text passages. FIG. 1 illustrates such an electronic screen with linked passages of text highlighted and underlined. In this presentation mode, the user typically manipulates an electronic cursor over the highlighted text and performs some action such as pressing a mouse button. For devices with a touch-sensitive electronic screen, the user may simply finger tap on the highlighted area.
As shown in FIG. 1, the text may have numerous branching points that lead to a multitude of supplementary material, making it unclear exactly what the supplementary material relates to. Additionally, under the traditional presentation mode, the format of the supplementary material (text, graphics, audio, video, etc.) is unclear until the material is opened. Further, the inclusion of so many potential branching points breaks the visual continuity of the electronic page, making the text appear broken and jumbled. Content displayed in this manner can be distracting and create difficultly for the user to maintain concentration. Of additional concern is the physical strain on the user's eye.
A second problem of eBooks with enhanced content is the lack of an ability to have multiple materials branching from a single point. A single word, image, or other content element could potentially have multiple supplementary materials available. For example, a reference to “Calvinist” might have a text file presenting biographic material for John Calvin, an audio file offering correct pronunciation, a picture of Calvin, a dictionary definition offering the tenets of Calvinist theology, a timeline of his ministries as they relate to the story, or a map of the location of Calvin's ministries (Geneva, Switzerland). Current presentation modes do not allow for multiple supplementary materials branching from a single point because the assumption is that a single, user-initiated action (mouse-button click or touch-screen tap) will cause a single, specific event to be triggered. This issue arises from the fact that computers (and hence their operating programs) perform optimally when they are making clear-cut, binary decisions. Having multiple possible actions by a computer is considered undesirable because of the lack of consistency in the outcome, which creates a “gray-area” of operation.
A third problem occurs when an eReader or device permits user selectable font sizes when graphics are present in the content. Electronic books are a popular medium for delivery of reading material. Such eBooks typically may be displayed on a multitude of electronic display screens by computer software that interprets information in a file and then displays that material for the user. Individual electronic devices (personal computer, smart phone, eReader, tablet, etc.) often have access to a variety of computer programs that are capable of performing this task.
Standardized coding schemes, such as hypertext markup language (HTML) and extensible markup language (XML), have been developed. Markup languages consist of non-displaying tags that alert the output program as to how to format the text. These tags may include commands to start a new paragraph, turn on/off text output characteristics such as bold or italics, as well as which font style and font size to use in displaying the text. Programming languages such as JavaScript exist for directing logical flow during program execution. Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) are used to determine how classes of elements appear on the electronic screen. New and improved standards are constantly being created as the need and demand arise.
Typically, users of electronic devices have the option to override the default font size to adapt to the user's viewing circumstances, including changes in ambient light, motion, and vision prescription. Varying font size means that one user's page of viewed text may not look the same as another user's text even though they might both be reading the same material on identical electronic devices. This is generally not a problem for text-only material because text can be displayed in a variety of font sizes without loss of meaning or continuity.
When graphics are included, however, the situation becomes problematic because it is often desirable to have text and graphics on the same page—or at least near each other spatially. For instance, many text presentations contain additional material to supplement the primary text. In some cases, the supplementary material might appear as end-materials, such as appendices. At other times, the supplementary material is adjacent to the primary text, including graphic illustrations with explanatory notes. In printed books, much thought and planning is put into placing the supplementary material so as to keep the page visually attractive. At the same time, the primary text has to maintain flow and continuity. It can be a difficult task to maintain the balance and aesthetics between primary text and on-page supplementary material. In eBooks, simply changing the size of a single word in the primary text can sometimes cause a complete realignment of entire paragraphs of text. This realignment can cascade and cause portions of paragraphs to flow into a previous page or next page. Realignment of text as a result of font changes often requires the supplementary material to be repositioned. Thus, in fixed-font schemes, such as printed books or PDF documents, the images and text can be prearranged on the same page. With variable font, however, it becomes a more detailed task to have freely moveable graphics that are anchored to specific textual passages.
A fourth problem of displaying eBooks when graphics are present arises from a device's screen size, characteristics, and orientation. There are a large number of e-text capable devices on the consumer market, each of which has its own screen size and display characteristics. Text that is formatted with graphics for one specific screen may not work equally well for another screen, even though their aspect ratios may be the same (4:3 for instance). Of further consideration is the fact that there are at least two standards for screen presentations—high-definition (HDTV) and standard-definition (SDTV). Add to this the condition that most hand-held electronic devices (eReader, smart phone, tablet, etc.) allow the user to hold the device such that its longer side can be oriented either vertically (portrait mode) or horizontally (landscape mode). This collection of variables, including font size, screen size, presentation format, screen display characteristics, and orientation, means that graphics-embedded text is inconvenient to display except for a predetermined font/screen/format/orientation combination. FIG. 2 illustrates the problem of holding a display in different orientations while reading fixed-width content. A slide bar allows the user to manipulate the viewing window. However, this presents a cumbersome reading environment.
To address this last problem, the user may have the option of scrolling or dragging a reading window around, as in FIG. 2, but this makes for an uncomfortable and inconvenient reading environment. Another solution is to have a multitude of preformatted presentations tailored to specific devices and screen combinations. Such an approach may be useful where a market is dominated by one device or a few devices, such as the Apple iPad for tablets or the Amazon Kindle for eReaders. For a wider, generalized market, however, the issue of coherently presenting text and graphics becomes time consuming and labor intensive.
One recent trend in computing has been an increase in portable devices with smaller screens. Tablet-style computers typically offer either a 7-inch or a 10-inch diagonal screen. Designing content with an appealing mixture of text and graphics for these disparate screen sizes is not easily accomplished. And while consumers are often willing to accept smaller screens in exchange for increased portability, the smaller screens necessitate smaller graphics to allow adequate room for text. Finding the right mixture in a vastly reduced visual landscape can be a daunting task.
The present invention provides an improved electronic book reader for displaying and interacting with electronic content, giving users control over the timing and means by which supplementary materials may be accessed.